Tonga!

Saturday, November 9th

We made two trips to the airport today. This morning a new couple came, Elder and Sister Funaki. They will be working with the Young Single Adults. He has been a professor at BYU Hawaii. They are originally from Tonga so they have a house here. They will be living there, not at Liahona but they want to be involved in all we do. They are very impressive people and we know they will be a great blessing to the over 8,000 YSA on this island.

After we met the plane, we drove out to Lavengatonga to have a look at the new stand for our water project. It was set up this last week. It looks so much stronger than the old one. We are excited to have the new tank up too and hope that happens this next week. We took pictures and then headed out to President Nau’s beach. He has a private beach on that end of the island that we had never been to. We didn’t have time to go in the water, we just wanted to see where it was. He has invited us out there for dinner in December, we just haven’t set a date yet. We walked along the beach and took more picturs, then headed home.
along the beach and took more picturs, then headed home.

This afternoon we went back to the airport to meet Elder Berger. He is the father of Sister Hamblin, who works in the mission office. He lost his wife to cancer this last June and he wanted to do something productive with his life. He is here on a service mission. He will be driving the missionaries around and checking some MQ’S. He is 75 years old, full of life and I think everyone is going to love him. He is from Ashton Idaho. He got off the plane wearing a white shirt and tie, a white cowboy hat and cowboy boots!! YEA IDAHO!! I love him already. He is living in the house right next to us, right thru the wall. It will be good to have him as a neighbor and I am glad that we are close so we can help him if he needs anything.

On the way home from the airport we stopped to watch a member of our ward play a soccer game. He is really good and has been asked to play professionally, but he is married and he feels it is more important to stay here with his wife. He is hoping to coach young kids and get them started. This was a village against village game. The coach had him play goalie today because the other goalie hasn’t been doing very well. Henili was embarrassed that the game we came to see, he really didn’t do much. They have a good team and most of the game was played at the other end of the field. Henili’s team won, easily.

We finished the day at movie night. We watched Ephraim’s Rescue. It is a great movie! All of us really enjoyed it and we all learned things about Ephraim Hanks that we didn’t know. The church did an excellent job putting that movie together.  It is one I want to buy when we get home.